Author Discussion: Barbara Tuchman vs. William Shirer

Both are very distinguished historians to this day. Shirer wrote the world wide classic The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Barbara Tuchman has been awarded the Pulitzer prize twice one of which was for The Guns of August. Which of the two authors do you prefer and why?

 

Rise and Fall was, for awhile, the definitive account of the rise of National Socialism. Excellent book.

 

I have both in my personal library, tend to favor Rise and Fall over Guns, but both are very good in my opinion.

 

Well I am not a literary critic so cannot comment beyond my personal preference. I read both back in the late 50's and early 60's then reread "Guns" a decade later and went on to read "The Proud Tower" . Their subject matter is obviously different and generally I prefer WW 2 matters but I like Ms. Tuchman's writing style better. Her keen descriptions of the social and historic events leading up to the First World War and into the beginning of it were compelling to me. "Rise and Fall" I felt was informative and expanded my views but lacked that feeling that made me want to just sit and read at the expense of doing other things. . I guess "Guns" provoked me to want to know more, "Rise" gave me information. Tuchman by a length.

Gaiines

 

I really do appreciate everyone's insight!

 

Shirer has been unmasked as a non historian and Tuchman was only a journalist without knowledge but with a lot of bias .

 

The Pulitzer prize is no criterion : Duranty also got him,while he was deliberately lying about the famine in the SU .

 

I don't mean to be argumentative or anything right now, but LJAd how do you define Shirer as a non historian and Barbara Tuchman being biased? I'm just curious and interested in any input.

 

Shirer was a journalist (not a historian) who arrived in Europe without any knowledge about Europe and left Europe without any knowledge about Europe :when he arrive,his baggage consisted of bias (European correspondents in the US are even worse).15 yearsafter the war,he wrote : Rise and fall of the Third Reich,while he was NOT present during the fall of the Third Reich(he left Europe in december 1940),I am not certain if he ever returned ,the aim of the book was to make money (he was in financial problems) .

And the book.... was swarming of faults a history student would not make :

some exemples


Stalin was a Russian:this is the same as saying that Hitler was a German

The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1648: it was dissolved in 1806

We will never know the truth about the Reichstagfire : the truth is that the Reichstag was set on fire by Van der Lubbe .


His "Sonderweg" theory has been debunked by serious historians as Klaus Epstein (German Jew who had the chance to leave Germany before the war)

And,than, something new : a case of falsification : Rise and Fall was founded on his Berlin Diary (published in 1941):comparing the original manuscript with the published text,historians have discovered that Shirer made many changes,such as covering his favourable early impressions of Hitler .

Source : M.Stobl: Authenticity and self-censorship in Shirer's Berlin Diary .

The fact that he was praised by Tuchman was not a reason to have a positive impression of him . His book is vulgarized history,written for the Christian Science Monitor,CNN,Fox (I am not biased).

Tuchman will follow later .

 

I read 'Rise and Fall' many years ago and even then found it rather superficial. It has since been superseded by many historians ( Burleigh, Evans etc ). However, I also have both 'Berlin Diary' and 'End Of A Berlin Diary' which I find entertaining to read precisely because they make no claims to objectivity - they are subtitled 'The Journal Of A Foreign Correspondent'. As such, they have a dramatic and contemporary feel.

 

Shirier was hated by academia because he wasn't a part of it, so academia's criticism doesn't really count for a whole lot in my eyes. My brother is in academia, and his skewed views are proof enough in my eyes to not put much credit into academia's criticism of works not coming from them.

And you left out the fact that he got tipped that the Gestapo was creating a death penalty case against him, hence the reason he left in 1940. He then went to other European countries before they were conquered by Germany.

 

Reading Berlin Diary as a kid is quite possibly the reason I became obsessed with what made Adolf & his boys tick. Great stuff.

And, hey, he announced The Fall of France to the world... pretty big scoop there, no matter what later academics may say.
I don't really understand that Wiki mentioned critique of the difference between a manuscript and a finished book either - So what? Manuscripts are manuscripts, published books are published books. I read Bryant's books based on Alanbrooke's diaries long before I read the diaries themselves. I preferred the latter, but fully understand the reasons for the tidied up and sanitised nature of the former.

 

Uh yeah, there was a huge food shortage in the SU, and he never called it a famine.